Teopantli Kalpulli: Recovering the sacred in daily life

By Tracy L. Barnett

SAN ISIDRO MAZATEPEC, Jalisco, Mexico – It was harvest season when I visited Teopantli Kalpulli, and the colorful native corn was spread out on the ground, drying in the sun. Children played in the grassy schoolyard as Levi Rios stopped from his rounds for a moment to watch them.

Not so many years ago, this young ecovillage leader was learning to read in this same schoolhouse; now a college graduate with several years’ experience in the city as a professional architect, he’s returned to his pastoral roots to help lead his community into a second generation.

Past, present and future meet at Teopantli Kalpulli, an intentional community/ecovillage about an hour south of Guadalajara. These families live close to the earth but still enjoy modern comforts. Conceived in the late 1970s by a small group that included Levi’s parents, Carlos Rios and Beatriz Cardenas, the community has grown to become Mexico’s largest intentional community of its kind.

Teopantli Kalpulli, a Nahuatl phrase which, loosely translated, means “sacred bioregional village,” was an outgrowth of the founders’ search for an earth-centered lifestyle that incorporated the sacred traditions of their ancestors. They were part of a network called the Universal Grand Brotherhood, practitioners of yoga, meditation and vegetarianism.

“They realized that the Americas had their own traditions that are as sacred as those of the East, so they decided to build their community on those traditions,” Levi explained.

The prehispanic kalpullis, he explained, were villages that shared a series of disciplines and cultural practices such as the traditional sowing of corn, the practice of sacred dance and the temezcal – the indigenous Mexican version of the sweat lodge ceremony. Teopantli, Levi said, was one of the first spaces in Mexico that opened its doors to the indigenous leaders to share their teachings, and those teachings were incorporated into the ecovillage structure.

Community members try to grow as much of their own organic food as possible, and they revere the corn and the Mother Earth as their ancestors did.

Teopantli is a paradise for the children, who have the run of the place. Twenty-one families make their homes on these 92 acres, concentrated on 17 acres of homes and common space. The rest of the land is used for cultivation of their traditional maize, for organic gardens and fruit trees, and forest.

The community is designed to hold 55 families, so the community is still accepting new members. Ownership of the land is collective, Levi explained, with members being granted permits to construct their housing.
“What we are doing here is assuring that the earth belongs to the community,” he explained. Another key goal of the community is to ensure that a healthy, cooperative, earth-based lifestyle can be accessible to people regardless of their income level.

The tour began at the center of the community, where a giant ceiba tree, sacred to the Maya and other prehispanic peoples, spreads its leafy branches over a ceremonial circle.

The community itself is laid out along the four cardinal directions, with sacred spaces in each of the four points: In the north, a small pyramid constructed in the way of their prehispanic ancestors; in the east, a sanctuary for yoga and meditation; in the south, a calihuey, the sacred temple of the Huichol ancestors, and in the west, a temezcal. In each of these four spaces, they hold different celebrations throughout the year.

“We learned from the Huichol people to link the planting of the corn with a calendar of activities throughout the year,” Levi said. The planning of activities in different parts of the community is important, he explained, as it “keeps the energy moving” throughout the community.

One of the top priorities as to community enters its next phase, he explained, is to expand the school to create different classrooms for the different age groups. Currently the 14 children who belong to the community all study in a common classroom, but the group is continuing to grow, with an additional two families joining in the past year.

One change the village has seen over time is an increase in the educational level, Levi explained. His parents were fortunate to attend college, he said, but most of the founders did not, and it was always a struggle to earn enough money to support the community.

Part of that herculean effort involved rebuilding the soil, depleted from years of slash-and-burn agriculture and overgrazing, and reforesting what had become deforested pasture.

“If I showed you the photographs from this place when the community first bought the land, you wouldn’t believe it – there wasn’t a tree or a bush to be seen,” he said. “If you’ll notice, the land all around the community is pasture.”

It’s true, I realized – we had entered a lush oasis of hardwood forest and abundant garden spaces.

Nowadays, as the community enters its second generation, Levi was explaining, more members of the community have gone to college and have brought to the community a variety of skills. Nowadays, 90 percent of the residents are able to earn their living from businesses based in the community; 10 percent of them commute to town to do other jobs.

Next was a tour of the prolific permaculture garden. Nine hectares (20 acres) are plowed with the antique tractor and planted as a traditional milpa – corn, beans and squash – in the traditional way of the ancestors.
Levi exchanges vegetables from his garden with other families who produce whole-grain baked goods, honey, soymilk, tofu and a variety of other items.

“Barter is something that’s come about naturally,” he said. “The people have workshops in their homes, and we just exchange.”

On the edges of the common areas are the homes, built by each of the owners themselves. All are built with materials available in the local area; some with adobe, others of brick. We pass one that has been abandoned and the owner has put it up for sale.

“It’s just that life is not easy here,” Levi explained. “You have to be able to make the economy work for you; you have to be able to live isolated from the economic system. If you can develop a professional activity isolated from the city, you can make it work – but it’s not for everybody.”

Few communities like this one have survived for this long, he said. “There are about five like this one in Mexico, but none of them with as many people as we have now in Kalpulli.”

The tour commenced to a comfortably spacious community dining area, where Beatriz and her two children, Yuma and Maya, were enjoying the sun on the patio. Beatriz is Swiss and her husband is Mexican; they are one of the new families in the community.

Maya and Yuma are hard at work coloring, and Levi stops to admire their handiwork – and also that of Beatriz, who, Levi informs me, designed and knitted the beautiful sweater she is wearing, which is made of organic linen.
Beatriz has made a business of selling these sweaters. This one, she says, took about 80 hours to make, and will sell for 700 pesos – a little over $50.

We continue on our way, meeting Celia Rubalcava, who has a soymilk business in her home, and Isaac, who is using a hand-powered mill to shuck the dried corn. His children are playing at his feet, making what looks like elaborate meals from mud.

“Aurima, what are you doing? Making little balls?” Levi queries. Aurima proudly displays her creations.
At the next house, I meet Jose Luis and Angelita Gutierez, who operate a small whole-grain bakery and tofu factory in their home. They showed me around and shared with me a little pinole de maiz – a powder made of cinnamon, brown sugar and toasted ground corn, eaten as a snack or mixed with hot water for a delicious drink.
Next we went on to the temezcal area, where small, domed structures awaited the next sweat lodge ceremony. Some of these ceremonies are open to the public, and others are just for the community.

Finally Levi takes me to his home, a cool brick-and-adobe house with simple, clean lines, a front porch with a hammock and a beautiful altar looking out onto the fields.

He shared with me a bit about his decision to return to the community after eight years in Guadalajara, four years at ITESO, a Jesuit university, and four more working with local architectural firms and construction companies.

“I believe all people have a mission in life – or if they don’t have one, they should! – but for me, growing up in a community has marked me with a special vision of community,” he said. “I wanted to go to the university precisely to broaden this concept of community.”